


The Nerve

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Time, Fluff, M/M, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 12:50:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re ticklish?” John ventures quietly and as Sherlock’s eyes shade stormy John grins and says more emphatically, “You’re ticklish!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nerve

The Tube rocks back and forth as it cruises down the Jubilee line, the car sparsely populated this late in the evening. John and Sherlock sit next to one another at the end of the car, Sherlock’s body resting against the side of the carriage while the bench to the left of John is completely empty. 

John would have preferred a cab but it’s so blustery and snowy out that after ten minutes of attempting to hail one, they gave up. Sherlock had strode onto the blue line carriage ahead of John and had plunked himself down at the end of a bench, hunkering down into his coat in an attempt to shut out the world. John isn’t entirely sure why he’d felt the need to sit so close to Sherlock in the nearly-emptiness of the carriage but he had shuffled close enough so he could feel the heat radiating off of Sherlock’s body. 

Now, he feels a similar urge to shut out the world.

They pull into Bermondsey and a singular passenger gets on, making his way to their end of the car and seating himself diagonally across from John; he opens a newspaper and folds it over, hiding the title and for a moment, John takes no more notice of him. Instead, John allows his neck to relax and he leans back, eyes slipping closed.

They’ve been on a case for the past four days and John - doggedly determined - had made it a point to also make it to his shifts at the clinic. Though they were few and far between, he needs the money just as much as he doesn’t want to burn any bridges. John needs the thrill and adventure of working with Sherlock of course, but he’s still a doctor by training (a damn good one if he’s being plain about it), and part of him craves the nurturing aspect of the job, being able to help people, being necessary to someone’s well being.

Not that he isn’t necessary to Sherlock as he’s come to find, it’s just a different sort of necessary, he supposes.

John sighs heavily, feeling the weariness in his bones as he tightens his arms across his chest and levers his head forward, pulling away from where he was resting against the window of the train; his eyelids feel so heavy and sticky it’s a wonder that he can manage to open his eyes and when he does he finds his attention arrested by the man on the bench across from him.

He looks familiar and John wonders, delves into the recesses of his memory and tries to determine where he knows him from. Perhaps they were in the Army together? No, no, he never forgets a comrade-at-arms. Perhaps he was a patient at one time? John bites his bottom lip and considers, glancing at him using his periphery as not to be too forward.

John thinks and thinks and then the realization slams into him, kicking his heartrate up a few notches. He’s seen this man’s face in a police dossier; he’s the serial bank robber that the Met has been looking for for the past six months. Sherlock hadn’t thought the case was worth their time so they hadn’t taken it, but John _remembers_ that countenance, remembers Lestrade holding up the shockingly clear surveillance photo and saying, “Eh, what about this one?”

John straightens his spine a miniscule amount, feels the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention as he susses out what exactly to do. He doesn’t have his gun on him, and he’s fairly certain that he’s too far gone, lacking in strength and sleep to surprise and incapacitate the suspect.

So, he reaches out with his left pointer finger--tucked beneath his right elbow where his arms are crossed, a movement that cannot be seen--and gently pokes Sherlock in the side. 

The result is instantaneous: Sherlock startles to with a little yelp and his body physically slams into the wall of the carriage, shoulder thunking solidly against the plastic-coated metal before he settles back on the bench, swallowing his shock. 

John lifts a brow as Sherlock shakes out his shoulders and his left leg tucks itself over his right as he swivels and meets John’s gaze with an apprehensive and defensive one of his own.

John goggles back, mouth open in confusion and amusement at what has happened; he doesn’t quite know what to say now, as they pull into London Bridge Station. John notices the suspect standing and shooting them a suspicious glance and John resolves to revisit what has just happened in favor of leaning back and deftly whispering, “That’s the suspect from that bank robbery case Lestrade showed us. I’m sure of it.”

Sherlock’s eyes flash from John’s to the man who has stepped up to the carriage door and is waiting for it to open. With a barely concealed groan and a roll of his eyes, Sherlock pulls his coat tighter around his shoulders and darts out of his seat.

They have the man on the concrete platform before the automated system can remind “Mind the gap!”

\---

It doesn’t take long for the police to arrive and take the suspect--spitting and cursing all the while--into custody and Sherlock and John get back on the Tube, headed to their original destination, back to Baker Street.

Sherlock resumes his half-seated, half-slumped position against the wall while John sits across from him, hands on his knees and staring. Sherlock snuffles down into his coat collar, one closed eye distinguishable through the thicket of his fringe. He must feel John staring because eventually that eye opens and he murmurs, “What?” into the wool of his coat.

John’s eyes narrow a bit and the pads of his fingertips twitch against where they rest on his knees. “Before, when I woke you up-”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“Yeah, okay, I didn’t think so,” John mutters, rolling his eyes in the process. He licks his lips and gazes at Sherlock for a moment more before posing the question, “So if you weren’t asleep... do you have an injury to your ribs or are you just ticklish?”

“No.”

“No to which?” John can’t help that half of his mouth perks up in a smile.

Sherlock sits up a bit straighter and John is aware of the faintest pink flush that appears on his cheeks as he presses his lips into a straight line. “No.”

“You’re ticklish?” John ventures quietly and as Sherlock’s eyes shade stormy John grins and says more emphatically, “You’re ticklish!”

Sherlock rolls his eyes in a magnificent fashion and retreats back into the armor of his coat, leaving John to his chuckling, which peters out by the time they reach the next station.

\---

John doesn’t think about Sherlock being ticklish for quite some time. The morsel of knowledge is nearly forgotten by the time his head hits the pillow, leaden and exhausted. It’s not something that he remembers upon waking, or for the next week. 

A fortnight later John is leaning over the hob, stirring a pot of soup he’s made, when Sherlock invades his space, searching the cupboard just to the right of him. John gets knocked in the calf, in the knee, and shoved over nearly entirely before he flips the wooden spoon around and pokes Sherlock in the side with the handle as a bit of retaliation.

Sherlock’s body spasms and before John fully grasps what he’s done, Sherlock abruptly lifts his head, smacking it on the edge of the cupboard. His groan is low and long and when he pulls back--hand placed over the site of the bump--he falls back onto his behind on the floor. “Rude,” Sherlock accuses before pressing experimentally against the lump forming on his head and hissing.

John pops the spoon back into the pot and huffs a laugh, crouching before Sherlock and swatting his hand away from his head. Sherlock glares reproachfully up at him but John just gives a soft smile and touches the lump gingerly, checking for any broken skin. “Sorry about that,” John says quietly, shuffling over so he can glance the affected area. “But it seems you _are_ ticklish.”

“No, you just surprised me,” Sherlock excuses his behavior in a petulant but soft tone. John catches Sherlock glancing up at him, face a mask of discomfort, as he prods around the lump.

“Oh did I?” John asks innocently. “Right then, sure.” It’s another beat before John is satisfied that there’s no lasting damage and he struggles to standing. He offers a hand to Sherlock who takes it almost immediately, and Sherlock winces as he straightens up, running his fingers over the back of his head one last time. 

“Christ, that smarts,” Sherlock says and winces again, slumping into a chair, his back to John.

“Ice it, you maniac,” John says around a suspicious, bizarrely-timed swell of affection. He furrows his brow at the sensation, visibly shaking it off and then turns to face Sherlock momentarily. “It _will_ help.”

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock waves off even as he makes his way over to the freezer and snatches out a packet of peas.

\---

Sherlock is fresh from the shower, still damp but clad in pajama bottoms and his dressing gown. For the first time in days he’s perusing the selection of available edibles in the refrigerator instead of seeking out a body part to dissect. The picture of indecision, he has one hand slung stop the refrigerator door and the other curled around the back of his neck. The image is somehow both completely innocent and decidedly luscious John’s imagination jolts into overdrive. It conjures bright, tempting images of Sherlock’s bottoms hanging just a bit lower, the expanse of his muscled back completely bare.  


John’s bottom lip becomes trapped between his teeth as he looks his fill, guiltily. There’s affection and there’s wanting and then there’s just gluttonous coveting and that’s what he’s doing now, yearning to see more bared skin. The rawness of this burns his throat and John struggles to regain his balance. Sherlock’s been standing there with the door open for going on a minute now and John is torn between telling him to stop being so bloody wasteful holding the door open like that and allowing his lecherous gaze to linger.

But then Sherlock cocks his left hip, his right angling down and his posture becomes more lazy and liquid. The bones juts out even further just as Sherlock’s body drapes itself onto the door for support and he sighs his indecision. The sound is a gentle rush of breath but the quiet noise of it knocks all of the air from John’s lungs, effectively shocking him from his reverie. 

With a heavy swallow John composes himself and walks forward and just like that, sends his finger out to press at the barrier of silk that is the only obstacle between his skin and Sherlock’s. His fingernail meets the resistance of Sherlock’s bone for the briefest second and then Sherlock jumps with his entire body, rattling all of the bottles and jars that are stored along the shelves of the refrigerator door.

“Christ!” Sherlock yelps, one shoulder of his dressing gown slipping down over a bicep. “Must I constantly be vigilant of you doing-”

“Doing what?” John prompts, innocently, eyes wide and mouth soft, budding arousal replaced with affectionate humor.

Sherlock struggles for a word and eventually manages an indignant,“ _That_!”

“Tickling you?”

“I,” Sherlock gathers his dressing gown around his torso, straightens to his full height, spine unfurling gracefully and looks down his nose at John, as though the very idea of being ticklish is appalling, “am not ticklish.”

“All signs point otherwise.”

Sherlock sniffs in a patrician manner and then, in a swirl of floaty fabric, slams the refrigerator door closed and dashes towards his room. “Order curry!” he directs once inside the bedroom and John, ever the caretaker and nourisher, heeds his request.

\---

John pokes at him while they’re waiting for Lestrade at the Met, when they’re in the cab on the way back from the “waste of time” case Lestrade had given them, and once as they’re passing each other in the sitting room. John is determined to get Sherlock to admit that he is ticklish, but he also knows that this determination is just a ruse to excuse his need to touch Sherlock.

It had been a steady build, something that morphed over time from curiosity about Sherlock, to wanting him, to the craving to touch Sherlock’s skin, and now John needs it, needs to _know_. Not quite like breathing but more as though a constant itch that lingers, begging to be scratched. Often times he finds himself wondering exactly when he’d shifted from one point to the other, from longing to needing, but he knows he can’t pinpoint an exact demarcation of when he’d gone from thinking of Sherlock as his best friend to recognizing him as an object of desire. John likens it to being put under anesthesia, a gradual thing, suffusing his entire being until he was sure of the effect but with no real recollection of how he got there.

But the effect is what matters, now. John’s blinding, selfish _need_ to feel Sherlock alive and whole, is what causes John to creep up behind him while he’s at the sink rinsing a beaker, and sink eight of his digits into Sherlock’s sides and wiggle them around.

Sherlock makes a noise that is partly cough and partly squeal and the beaker hits the aluminum of the sink but thankfully does not shatter. It rattles around for a moment, resonating alongside John’s victorious, slightly manic laughter. 

John keeps it up for a few moments as Sherlock attempts to wriggle away from his hands but John uses his position to push Sherlock forward until he’s flush with the sink. Sherlock is gasping, sounding equally torn between mirth and pain and his behind keeps shoving back into John’s hips as he struggles to break free. 

Something warm and delicious slides down John’s spine as Sherlock’s back makes hard contact with his chest and he revels in the brilliance of having Sherlock like this, at his mercy in his arms. John allows himself one more brief squeeze, knowing full well that if he continues any longer that the warm, delicious feeling will go from pooling in his gut straight to his prick. 

John’s chuckles peter out and he steps back, pulling his hands away, the end of the silly power struggle leaving pleasant endorphins swimming in his head. It’s the deceleration of the moment and John’s acquiescing to slide into it that slows his reaction time and he can’t defend himself when Sherlock reaches forward and grabs his wrists. 

“That,” Sherlock growls, looking sweaty and sounding out of breath, “was a deliberate attack.” His chest heaves as he glares down at John. 

“Sorry,” John gasps, tugging at his bound wrists a bit but Sherlock holds steady. The grip is just a shade from painful and it causes the warmth in John to bloom into something heavier, something perplexing and shaded deeply red. “Just wanted to prove my point.”

“By assaulting me?” Sherlock continues on, advancing on John an inch, looking down into his upturned face. The smile that’s on John’s lips falters, but he catches it just before it disappears; can’t let the situation veer into too serious of territory. 

John scoffs. “Oh stop it, _assaulting_ you. I was just tickling you, you madman!”

“Why?” Sherlock breathes and his eyes narrow, like he might just be picking John apart. In all of the calamity, John had let his defenses down. It had pleased him to feel Sherlock out of control, it had humbled and amused and softened him to find that Sherlock was susceptible to human touch. And now John is sure his very gaze betrays the complex feelings he hasn’t even begun to suss out for himself yet.

John swallows and tries for another smile but he can tell from the feel of it that it’s lopsided and hollow, a further betrayal. “Because, because I-”

“Speak John,” Sherlock taunts with a shadow of a sneer. “You know I _so_ hate when you stutter.”

“Because I wanted to?” His eyes flick back and forth as the words sink in, as he realizes what he’s admitted. 

“Why?” Sherlock repeats.

John tries a different tactic, attempts to divert the conversation and derail the most observant man in the world from what he’s just admitted. “And don’t you also hate _repeating_ yourself?”

Sherlock’s fingers weaken against his skin and John makes to pull away, but Sherlock redoubles his effort, causing John to stumbled forward slightly, until their chests are mere inches from touching. 

“Shut up.” Sherlock says, softer now. “Wanted to, why?”

John swallows again and considers. He’s thought long and hard about how this very instance might go-- about the insanity and improbability of it as well because John is a rational man--and he’s never come up with a solid, believable scenario. John always assumed that it was simply a fantasy, hoping his well-compacted and complicated feelings about his best friend might be reciprocated and so he treated them as such: impossible and therefore unimportant, nothing to fret about. Yet now, in the moment, he realizes them as fact, bold-faced and insistent and fear surges through him at the prospect of being discovered and rebuffed.

He feels wrong footed and too hot, but Sherlock holds him, steady and sure, waiting for an answer. “Because I did,” John finally settles on and expects that to be that, which is, he realizes, entirely unreasonable.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Sherlock, let me go.”

“Why did you-why _have_ you been tickling me? It’s not to prove a point John, you knew from the first instance. You knew. It wasn’t simply to pray upon my ridiculous involuntary bodily reaction, that’s not something a man like you would consider a lark, no.” Sherlock swallows gravely just as John had before and John swears he sees it, swears he sees the minute darting of Sherlock’s gaze, away from John’s own eyes to his lips.

It’s a fraction of a second but John knows he catches it and suddenly everything, the atmosphere, the shadows, the very blood inside of his veins, shifts. “You already know,” John says, rather proud of himself that he’s even managed to string the sentence together with the way his voice wavers. “Now stop it.”

Sherlock blinks, slowly. “You’re trembling.”

John musters what courage and determination he has left and stops attempting to hide how completely wrecked and flayed-open he feels. There’s a tiny shifting of the skin around his eyes and the curvature of his mouth changes and he knows from the resulting softening of Sherlock’s gaze that Sherlock understands.

Cards on the table. 

“You’re trembling,” Sherlock says again; it’s not a whisper because Sherlock doesn’t whisper but it’s very nearly at that register.

“‘m bloody terrified,” John mumbles, matter of factly. 

Sherlock looks him over, from the toes of his socks to the top of his brow and breathes in. “Of me.”

“No,” John shakes his head. “Not of you. Of, of,” he searches for the words, tilts his head back as though he might read them on the ceiling. “What any of it, any of _this_ means.”

Sherlock brow furrows minutely. “I don’t understand.”

John withers, sighs, wants this conversation to be over, wants to admit to Sherlock all of the things he’s never confessed to, wants a million different things to happen a million different ways. “What do you want me to say, Sherlock?” and it comes out with the utmost exasperation because he _is_ exasperated because none of this was ever supposed to happen, not like this, but _exactly_ like this too and John feels very near his absolute wit’s end. 

Sherlock shifts his gaze, down to where he holds John’s right wrist and then glances over at where he holds John’s left wrist. Sherlock bites briefly at his bottom lip and swallows, releases a heavy gust of breath that puffs out and tickles John’s face; he’s considering something heavy and the silence they’re caught in is pregnant and charge.

“After all of this, after all of this dancing around, touching me, _provoking_ me, you still can’t say it.”

“Say what?” John prompts, keeping his voice even. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that you’re mine.” Sherlock says roughly. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever really wanted.”

John’s mouth parches but even as Sherlock says it his eyes dart away; he’s scared too, terrified of what any of it means. “Oh,” John breathes, “I just… I suppose…”

Eyes narrowing even further, Sherlock remains stock still, waits. EVentually John releases a breath of his own, licks primly at his upper lip and swallows thickly. “Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah,” John says definitively. “Yes.”

Sherlock’s shaky half-smile is a welcome relief to John, who sucks in a deep breath and also takes a step back. They assess one another across the short distance for a while.

John sighs eventually, shaky, rubbing at the back of his neck. There’s a conversation to be had, and it’s likely to be stilted and uncomfortable but John wants to conquer it. He wants to face it, right now, when these admissions of desire are fresh and unable to be shied away from. “Look, Sherlock-”

“Are _you_ ticklish?” Sherlock interrupts suddenly, eyes wide and inquiring, his chin tipping up towards John as he asks. 

The tension shifts and the hairs on the back of John’s neck prickle. This… isn’t how it was supposed to go. His guard goes up immediately. “Am I… ticklish.”

“Yes. Are you ticklish?” Sherlock implores once more, his face schooled to give nothing away.

John’s eyes narrow a fraction, the lines on his forehead becoming apparent. “I… well, I…”

“Shall I find out?” Sherlock drawls and the moment doesn’t just tilt, it flips entirely and the bottom falls out of John’s belly just as a giddy thrill races up his spine. Sherlock advances the single pace is takes to step back up to John and he reaches up his hands. But John, with a deft maneuver, steps out of the way of the attack and dashes down the hallway, overshooting the loo for Sherlock’s bedroom, where he nearly trips over himself when attempting to stop short.

Sherlock advances on him like a serial killer in a film, slowly, hands outstretched. “Come now, fair is fair, John.”

“Bugger,” he curses under his breath and looks up at Sherlock, tongue touching the corner of his lips. “Alright, I am. I am ticklish, okay, I… there, now you know, so stop, stop it.”

Sherlock blinks at John and then in something of a contortionist’s maneuver, kicks his right leg back and manages to shut the door. “Listen Sherlock, I know you think this is retaliation but-”

“Turnabout,” Sherlock growls and John takes a shaky step backward, knocking into Sherlock’s dresser as he does. “You must be even more ticklish than I am. You’re _so_ on edge.”

John swallows, motioning behind him for any other pieces of furniture he might knock into. He feels the _threat_ of the tickle much like he experiences immersing himself in cold water or ripping off a plaster; it’s not the end of the world but he’d much rather avoid the shock of it all. “I am. Yeah. Very.”

“It’s delightful,” Sherlock says gleefully and darts out with both hands, aiming for John’s ribs. John contorts, bringing his elbows tight to his sides and hunching over to block Sherlock from getting at him. His face scrunches up tight as though he’s in pain.

Sherlock chuckles and John flinches at the sound. “This is really terrible foreplay,” John whines and risks tilting his face up to glance at Sherlock. 

“Foreplay?” comes Sherlock’s deep and luscious drawl. “Foreplay implies that there’s something that comes afterwards. Sex, namely.” Sherlock goes for John again but John twists away, falling further into Sherlock’s room.

“Well,” John gasps as the anticipatory thrill of being tickled rushes through him, unfurling a bit so he’s able to meet Sherlock’s mischievous gaze. “Aren’t you, I mean don’t you…”

The answering grin is both sweet and predatory. “Oh you’re so predictable John, it makes it terrifically easy to manipulate you.”

“Hey!” comes John’s exclamation and he stands straight, points at Sherlock with an outstretched hand and it takes him a fraction of a second to realize his error. Sherlock has purposefully called him out and he’s taken the bait so easily, proving Sherlock’s diversion of a point in the process.

It seems it takes Sherlock no amount of effort at all to grasp John around the forearm, toss him backwards onto the mattress and pounce over him, knees bracketing John’s thighs. “Oh dear John,” Sherlock tut-tuts, his face drawn in a mock frown, “so, _so_ predictable.”

And then he attacks, bows over and slips his fingers over John’s sides, eliciting a broken curse and a whine, a series of high pitched giggles. John’s body flails wildly, bucking this way and that without any will of his own. His hands fly out to try and knock Sherlock off of top of him, but he only succeeds in baring his underarms to Sherlock’s deft fingers. 

He squeals and laughs, his spine popping as he attempts to throw Sherlock’s weight and roll over on his side, but there’s no escaping him. Above him, Sherlock grins and his fingers find all of John’s soft spots--the insides of his elbows and back of his knees and even his neck. 

John begins to sweat, his body engaging in fight or flight with no real hope of freedom. He’s a mess; his trouser legs are twisted around his calves and one of his shoes has been kicked off. John’s shirt is rucking up around his stomach but if he moves to press it back into place he fears he’ll leave himself open to an attack. So John fidgets and gasps, growls up at Sherlock to “fuck off already!” 

“No, no, no,” Sherlock admonishes and continues his undoing of John, pulling from him the most ludicrous, animalistic noises. 

When Sherlock diverts to once again attack John’s knees, he feels a shift of Sherlock’s body and in an instant he manages to roughhouse Sherlock over onto his back against the mattress. Triumphant, he rises up on his knees and grins down at Sherlock who is disheveled and laughing, arms out limply at his sides. “You’re a right arsehole,” John pants but manages a chuckle.

“And you’re so wonderfully responsive!” Sherlock says smoothly, laughter fading to a gentle smile. “May I kiss you now?”

John raises a brow, settles his hands on his knees. “You’re the one lying on the bed, it would be me kissing you, wouldn’t it?”

“Perhaps we should meet in the middle,” he says and with that Sherlock’s left arm sweeps up to grasp behind John’s neck and they do meet in the middle, their lips settling warm and closed against one another. 

They lean back, John splayed across Sherlock’s chest, mouths resting against one another for long moments. Faces shift and touch, the gesture sweet and innocent.

They breathe together like that, still and warm against one another until John dares tod open his mouth a fraction. Sherlock comes wonderfully alive with a gasp, bends his knees and gathers John so that he is resting between Sherlock’s thighs. 

They kiss and kiss and kiss, Sherlock seemingly wanting to find every angle and variation. It’s unhurried and a bit sloppy, neither one of them wanting to pull away entirely in order to draw breath. John hums and chuckles, pleased with Sherlock’s reactions, rocking back and forth in the cradle of his legs. Sherlock flips them again, blanketing John with his body and placing a wet, open-mouthed kiss at John’s jugular before pulling back to gaze down at him. There’s a flicker of a wondrous smile before he ducks in again. “Not gay?” Sherlock mumbles against John’s mouth as he angles for another, deeper kiss.

John allows the moment to crest and coast and then he replies, smears it into Sherlock’s cheek. “I like women, I like men, I like _you_. Now, shut up.”

“Right, yes,” Sherlock agrees, amused. “Take off your trousers.” 

“Brilliant idea,” John says and struggles over to the edge of the bed, going further than asked and shucking his one remaining shoe, socks, shirt and vest as well. He leaves his pants on--utilitarian black boxers--and gets back on the bed, laying his head down on the pillow as he watches Sherlock strip down. Sherlock folds his trousers and his shirt neatly although they’ve been fairly mussed by their actions already.

Still, it’s nice to watch Sherlock’s careful attention to where the trousers crease, the care with which he rests them on the seat of a chair. He looks composed and perfect for a brief moment when he turns to glance at John; one long breath exits through his nose just as he presses his hands down the front of his thighs and quirks his mouth into a hopeful upturn. “Well.”

“Yeah,” John agrees and bends an arm up and under his head, continuing to look his fill as he reclines.

Sherlock pads over to the empty side of the bed and climbs on, crawls deliberately over the duvet and settles atop of John, knees flanking John’s hips once more. “This is alright.” It doesn’t sound like a question, though John knows that it is.

“Mmmm, yeah, this is good.”

“Good,” Sherlock sighs and leans in for another kiss. John’s arms come up and touch over the warm skin of Sherlock’s shoulders. His fingertips meander almost of their own accord, slide across his back and knead up the back of Sherlock’s neck. Thick black curls fill the space between John’s fingers as he steers the kiss deeper, Sherlock’s tongue sweet and eager against his own. 

John’s prick feels full and heavy in his pants and it drives his hips upwards, dragging against Sherlock’s own hardness between two layers of fabric. A breath kicks out of Sherlock’s lungs, directly into John’s mouth and John’s hums his approval both at Sherlock’s response and the heady pleasure lighting every one of his nerve endings. 

He rolls his hips again and delights in Sherlock’s full body shudder. Sherlock dives in and smears their mouths together, meets the movement of John’s pelvis with his own and they rut against one another inelegantly atop Sherlock’s ludicrously expensive bedclothes. 

Sherlock is so responsive, kissing him so ardently that John is entirely surprised when Sherlock has his fingers on the hem of John’s shorts. “John,” Sherlock whispers against his mouth and then meets his gaze; he very deliberately glances down at where his fingers linger at the elastic band and then back up at John’s eyes.

John gives one, deliberate inclination of his head and Sherlock grins, slips his fingers down and in, around.

“Now I see why your gait is so... distinctive,” Sherlock says, grinning into John’s cheek before pulling back to flick the tip of his tongue against the end of John’s nose. 

“Hah,” John manages, but that’s all as Sherlock squeezes his prick, strokes it once leisurely from root to tip and back. John wriggles and wriggles and eventually Sherlock takes the hint and shucks the boxer shorts from John’s body and John is completely bare, hard and leaking in Sherlock’s warm hand. “Didn’t think the whole tickling lark--oh god!--would land me here.”

“Land you here?” Sherlock has rolled to his side but has his right leg stretched over both of John’s as he strokes him with wickedly teasing movements. “In my bed?”

“Yes, anywhere remotely li-like this,” John says with difficulty, as Sherlock has begun toying with his foreskin, dragging it down and back. He pauses at the head to run his thumb back and forth over the moisture that’s gathered there and proceeds to draw his hand unhurriedly back and forth over John’s straining prick. John feels a pleasure dripping down his spine, gathering to pool heavy and solid and thick in his stomach.

For a moment, he forgets how to breathe because Sherlock Holmes wants to touch, _is_ touching him.

Sherlock’s breath is a moist tickle over John’s right ear and he sighs, allowing his eyes to fall closed as Sherlock strokes him with perfect pressure. “Hmmm,” he purrs and John feels it reverberate right down his spine. “But you imagined it?”

“Yes?”

“Playing scenarios in your mind, perfectly filthy though sometimes innocent too, of the two of us, like this?”

John swallows against a wave of emotion, something like embarrassment but something also like greed. “Yes, god yes.”

“Me too,” Sherlock whispers with a fierce intent and then his hand is gone, the warmth of his body absent as he rolls away. John’s eyes pop open, his system flooding with apprehension. It’s tamped down immediately when he sees the curve of Sherlock’s arse revealed as he removes his pants and kicks them off of the end of the bed. 

Sherlock makes his way back to John, slots up beside him, his cock hard against John’s hip. Sherlock stares, looks at John’s face unblinking and his hand resumes its hold of John’s erection. John can’t tear his gaze away; he snakes his hand down Sherlock’s body, careful not to bump into Sherlock’s, and trails his fingers lightly through the hair there. “I want to see you,” John finds himself saying and it feels like he’s walking through fog or that someone else has taken control of his body; the moment seems too otherworldly for it to be happening.

He’s removed from himself, but finds that he’s moving, pressing Sherlock back, head to the pillow, so that he can shift to his knees and look down at the body spread beneath him. Sherlock wears a smile, but one tinged with a bit of uncertainty. It, coupled with the color high on his cheeks, makes him look the picture of cautious optimism as though he’s not sure that John will accept, will _want_ what he sees. 

The realization that Sherlock is still even the slightest bit unsure of what resides in the cockles of John’s heart steals John’s breath and he leans forward, graces Sherlock with a long, ardent kiss. “You’re,” John breathes, a hitch in his voice and he presses his nose into Sherlock’s cheek, takes a long inhale and considers.

He doesn’t want to give too much more away, he can’t afford it. The rational part of his brain kicks to life, reminds him of endorphins, how the presence of passion can induce someone to speak truths better left for telling outside of the bedroom.

But Sherlock’s rumble of “John?” cuts through his indecisiveness and John pulls back, gazes down at Sherlock.

“You’re…” John touches his bottom lip with his tongue. “Beautiful.”

Sherlock’s blink is long and slow and when his eyes open again they’re clear, blue-grey, infinite. He reaches a hand out, curls it around John’s hip. “Come here.”

John goes willingly, instantly, into the circle of Sherlock’s arms; when they’re pressed together, chest to chest, Sherlock says, “There are over seven billion people on this planet John; how is it even remotely possible that you’re actually _here_ , with _me_?” 

For all of Sherlock’s self-aggrandizing, for all of his egotistical flaunting and impressive confidence, this takes John by surprise, knocks the breath out of his lungs and the coherency from his brain. John feels like his ribs are going to press right through his chest, that he’s going to cease to be, melt into nothing right atop Sherlock and so he kisses Sherlock and grounds himself, attempts to translate just how Sherlock makes him feel into the drag and pull of their mouths and bodies.

When he pulls off with a gasp, their cocks slotting against one another, he says, “You’re a right sap.” Sherlock just smiles and tosses a hand out, manages to snag a pinky in the handle of the drawer of the bedside table. 

A moment later, a slick hand wraps awkwardly around both of their pricks. “My hand will cramp easily like this,” Sherlock says, returning somewhat to his clinical self. “Though I’m rather certain that this will be over far too quickly for that to become an issue.”

John laughs but nods, licking sloppily into Sherlock’s mouth as Sherlock’s hands attempt to keep the two of them together. His hips begin a counter movement to Sherlock’s hand, dragging downward on his upstroke and it creates the most delicious duality of friction. 

Sherlock shifts, presses John back and resumes when they’re on their sides, facing one another. Sherlock groans, a deep guttural thing and suddenly John’s arousal is notched up tenfold. “Oh god,” he murmurs once and then again.

“Yes,” Sherlock hisses and his movements become even more clumsy and uncoordinated. John’s head is wrapped in what feels like wool and his heart pounds; he sees, hears, dear god _smells_ only Sherlock and now he needs to touch him. It’s a need so desperate that he can’t even voice. He reaches down and manages to wrestle Sherlock’s hand out of the way, curling his fingers around the heft of him. 

Sherlock’s hand falls away and he gasps, inching his mouth closer to John’s; they breathe into one another, John’s palm moving with determination over Sherlock’s skin. He gathers the precome and slicks it around, lingering below to test the weight of Sherlock’s balls against his fingertips. “Oh Jesus Christ,” John pants, thinking how very much he’d like to meander down, take Sherlock into his mouth and taste him.

Sherlock’s desperate breaths, his shivering hips reminds John that this is a fantasy best left to a later time and on the upstroke John runs his thumb across the fraenulum of Sherlock’s cock and then takes his mouth in an urgent kiss.

It’s poetic, how Sherlock fractures apart then and there, his whole body trembling as his hips snap and he comes, hot and wet and slick against John’s own prick. 

John sees a sort of bright crimson behind his eyelids at the sensation but he keeps hold of Sherlock, jerks him through it, gentling his touches in the aftershocks. At once he is pleased and sated, on edge and strung tight as a wire. But this is a gift, seeing Sherlock in the aftermath, wrecked and gasping, attempting to find it within himself to swallow against a rushing pulse and waves of endorphins. John looks his fill, at the dappled blotches of pink on Sherlock’s chest, the dots of come on his stomach, his tousle of hair and unfocused eyes.

John is pleased and stunned that he’s reduced Sherlock Holmes to _this_.

“John,” Sherlock says eventually as his eyes refocus and his hands move. John is once again wrapped up in a firm hand, the sensation this time on the edge of pleasure-pain, he’s so aroused. In the instant that John allows his eyelids to dip closed he misses Sherlock’s careful, calculated movement. In the next, a warm, wet heat envelops his cock and John’s eyes fly open, wide and seeking. 

It filters in, the knowledge that Sherlock is sucking his cock while it’s still painted with the evidence of his own desire and John almost chokes on his tongue. It’s the two of them together, in Sherlock’s mouth, on his _tongue_ and it’s too much.

“Fuck, god, just,” he grits out and then John is coming, his body giving him nary a second’s warning. He fights the urge for his hips to buck, grits his teeth and groans out a high note as he pulses, feeling it pull from behind his eyelids, the base of his spine, the back of his throat. John’s entire body comes, wholly, fantastically.

He doesn’t black out but it’s a spare moment before he comes back to himself, Sherlock licking carefully at him, cleaning him before pulling away. 

Sherlock leans back, glances up at John from under his lashes and waits. 

It’s John’s turn to catch his breath, assess momentarily what has just happened and attempt not to overanalyze it all in the aftermath. John peeks down at Sherlock, looks up at the ceiling and then peeks down again, a lazy smile painting his mouth; he pats the pillow next to him with his knuckles and Sherlock follows the unspoken command, curling up next to John on his side.

“Well,” John sighs happily.

“Well?”

“Hmmm,” John hums.

Sherlock blinks and blinks at him, stares for a time and then asks, “What are you thinking?”

John twists his head so that they’re facing one another. “You know what I’m thinking,” he accuses.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees quietly. “But I’d rather hear you say it.”

He takes a breath and then another and then John suddenly shifts over onto his side and shuffles so that Sherlock’s knees are resting against his upper thighs. “I’m thinking I’ve either just gone and cocked up everything I have with my best friend or…”

“Or?”

“Or,” John struggles, feeling a rabble of butterflies burst free in his abdomen; he glances away. “You know, the other thing.”

Sherlock’s brow knits in confusion. “The _other_ thing?”

“You know, the… the something _more_ thing, the…” John trails off and meets Sherlock’s gaze only to find an amused glint in his eyes and a purse of a smile on this lips. “You... oh, you _know_ what I mean!” John chuckles and reaches out to roughly grab Sherlock’s hand and lace their fingers together. “Bastard.”

“Yes, I do know and…” Sherlock sniffs, scrunches up his nose and then looks primly at John. “I’m to understand that negotiating the ‘other’ is something that takes time and consideration but perhaps we can settle on deciding on the ‘other’ status now and determine the intricacies,” Sherlock pauses, yawns. “At a later time.”

“Is that the genius way of saying you’re about to fall asleep and want to talk about it later?”

“Yes,” Sherlock yawns again and gets more comfortable against his pillow.

John rolls his eyes but steps from the bed, untucks the rumpled covers and watches as Sherlock does the same. “Dick.”

“Mmm, probably,” Sherlock acquiesces and then climbs into bed, pulls the covers right up to his shoulder. “Yes. Now get in and shut up.”

“I’m going to take a shower,” John says instead, tapping at the dried come on his belly. He takes a long beat to gaze at Sherlock, sleepy and sated and apparently now well and truly his. “But I’ll be back.”

“Fine,” Sherlock grumbles and just as John turns to head for the loo, he peeks an eye open and serves him with a last, scalding glare. “John? Now that we’ve gotten this out of the way, the touching and the sex and whatnot… if you ever even _think_ about tickling me again, I will make you pay.”

“Oh-hohoho,” John chuckles and shuffles to the bathroom. “I look forward to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [the mighty and brilliant Allison](wearitcounts.tumblr.com) for her beta work; all errors are my own.
> 
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> 
> **ALSO! I'm fundraising for a 5K I'm running to benefit Boston area shelter cats! If you feel like donating that would be utterly spectacular! To do so, go[HERE](http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/LeslieCummings/meow-mile-5k-road-rally)!**


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